I suppose its all Canfor's fault. Isn't that the usual path the bleeding hearts take.

It's smoke from fires. Nothing to do with Canfor.

Not this time He Spoke. You are right though, Canfor does have a significant role to play in regards to our bad our air normally is :)

It is God's fault for giving us all these wonderful forests throughout the province, the weather conditions, and the lightning strikes to ignite the forests.

The same air quality exists throughout much of BC at this time, including the GVRD and Whistler.

In this neck of the woods, CANFOR is God.

So you are right on He spoke!!

:-)

Strange. The Air Quality Health Index
Prince George on the weather site tells us that we are at a low risk healthe wise.

One need not be an air quality eapert to see the air quality is in the dumoer. And its jor forest fires.
Cheers

1 hour averages for noon up to 2 pm (sites report in at different times, don't know why since it should all be automated) in various parts of the province on today, the 5th of August 2010

Read from this site
http://www.bcairquality.ca/readings/index.html

First is PM2.5 and second Number is PM10
Accepted 24 hr average is 25 and 50 respectively (number in brackets is 24 hour average - this typically lags behind considerably)

1. Whistler - 77.6(71.3)
2. Squamish - PM10 86.2(53.8)
3. Powell River - 50.5(46.4)
4. Williams Lake - 265.5(43.3) + 316.1(70.9)
5. Kamloops - 36.2(40.1)
6. Port Moody - 40.2(30.9)
7.PG-Plaza 400 PG - 58.3(29.5) + 90.7(50.7)
8. Pitt Meadows - 37.1(29.3)
9. Burnaby Kensington - 32.7(28.5) + 55.1(39.2)
10. Hope - 33.7(25.1)
11. Horseshoe Bay - 54.3(25.0)
12. Kitsilano - 28.9(24.5)
13. Chilliwack - 26.3(21.6)
14. Quesnel - 44.9(20.1) + 62.9(32.7)
15. Victoria - 19.1(10.3)
16. Golden - 11.0(6.2) + 13.7(22.3)
17. Nelson - 1.3(1.3) + 3.9(14.3)
Fort St. John - PM10 44.8(36.8)
Grand Forks - PM10 10.2

So, this is one for those rare days that forest fires across the central area and to the west of the province have put PG in 7th worst place rather than first or second when comparing the PM2.5 one hour readings at mid day on the 5th of August 2010.

In fact, the area that has been worst off in the last week or so is Quesnel down to Lillooet.

Sorry, those are ordered by 24 hour average pm2.5

The air quality health index is built for urban Canadian environments and weighs ozone much heavier than particulates since particulates are not a major problem in most urban environments other than the west coast valleys.

From my point of view I don't take much note of it. We can have PM2.5 levels twice provincial target maximum for days and it won't read higher than 3 .....

Well today it only smells like smoke and it's hard to see in the distance. A couple days ago the pollution was so bad I had to close all the windows. That smell in the air wasn't smoke, either.

Williams lake is higher than I have ever seen on those graphs. In the 400+ range.

http://www.bcairquality.ca/readings/index.html

And you will notice that most of the bad air is coming down the Nechako Valley to fill up the bowl (even though the fires are south of here)... this is normal because that is where our air comes from at the valley level.

This is significant because that is also where the city want, to plan its future heavy industrial sites for companies with air pollution problems.. par for the course for land use planning in these parts though as industry rules and they can locate their pollution where ever it is financially convenient for them.

Get use to the air pollution in this city is all I can say. We don't have the political will to see it any other way.

http://www.theweatherman.ca/cms2/webcams

Go to the web cams to see the current view from all those southern places, including williams lake

sorry eagleone, the fires are south west of here, not due west or north west.

the prevailing winds are typically from the south, as in more than 50% of the time. Check the wind roses for this region in all the reports.

there are local changes as in wind circulating in the bowl. there are days when one can see flags in the distance or smoke and they are waving in one direction to the north and another direction to the south.

I dont know what happened, but the smoke has gotten significantly worse in the last half hour...

Much thicker, and you can smell it strongly now...

If you listen real close you will notice that there have been no Water Bombers flying all day.

Rumour has it that we ran out of aviation gas. Whoda thunk it.

All the bombers have likely been deployed to the bigger fires - which luckily are not around PG.

I read online somewhere that the Mars bomber was headed to the Cariboo.

They will find some fuel somewhere, the only question will be which budget they take from to pay the bills.

Has anyone ever sat by a bonfire that does not burn hot enough and has a high amount of smoke and the venting is lousy so the smoke rises for a bit and wafts around to one side and then another and even comes back down to nicely engulf the people sitting here, and then there, and then over to the other side.

Well, this is not much different other than the magnitude of the thing. The distances are vaster, the smoke is immensely greater, and there are a hell of a lot more people sitting around the fire and they cannot move to the other side of the fire.

Many predicted this. The beetle kills are typically followed by fire. We have had a HUGE beetle kill. It is normal to expect some HUGE fires as well. So this should not be any surprise.

The thing is that what can we do about it? Prevention is difficult because of the magnitude. But we should likely be doing more to help the forests along and especially near populated areas. There has been some sanitation to get rid of the worst close in to the cities.

BUT, this is a different interface. I do not recall being warned of this amount of smoke in urban areas from fires that are 80+km away. I do not think that people who are especially sensitive have been prepared adequately for this. It has been this way in Williams Lake for about a week. I have been watching it go up and down. Seems that no one is watching what is happening in some of our sister cities to learn from them.